“I trust the money and the documents arrived previously,” Kesarh said.
“Yes, my lord.”
“And you and your men are ready.”
“Yes.”
“Baffled by it all, my Rem?”
“As baffled as you require, my lord.”
“My requirements are those I stipulated. The ship you’re to take is the Lily, Dhol’s vessel. When you reach the port of Amlan, you’ll accompany Dhol’s man to my commercial agent in the capital. She doesn’t understand,” Kesarh added, for Rem had glanced at the girl. “Nothing, in fact. She thinks the child’s her own, the dead one, come back to life.”
“Nor has anyone disillusioned her.” Kesarh looked at him, only waiting. Berinda stood in her dripping cloak, rocking the swathed thing that was the baby, smiling down on it. She looked more aware than Rem had ever before seen her. Rem said, “and I’m to give the agent in Amlan your letter, and the child. What then?”
“Come back over the water. He’ll find it a home, an obscure home, and get me word. Somewhere Ankabek can’t suss, even by magic. One day the female may be of use to me. If not, she’ll be no use either to my enemies.”
Rem hesitated. Then he said, “The child of your sister.”
“No. The child she refused to bear. They made her body bear, that’s all.”
“And the sorcery meant nothing to you.”
Kesarh smiled; his eyes were cold. Rem held his gaze, not wishing to.
“I’m not here to discuss my emotions. I’m here to leave you the brat and its wet-nurse. I considered exposing it on the shores of Karmiss, when I got it there. Your work is to remove it from my unloving grasp to Lan. You see?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Yes, my lord. You’ve always gone about like a prince rather than a bandit, my Rem. You look more like one, too. One of my girls once told me you have a likeness to the old statues of Ram Am Mon.”
Rem schooled himself. His heart disproportionately clamored, but he showed nothing. Kesarh had turned away, taken up his cloak.
“On the ship,” he said, “you’re just another minor noble, voyaging with your guard and your mistress and your favorite bastard baby. The vessel sails with the morning tide.”
When he was gone, the two escort clanking behind him down the stairs, Rem stayed where he was. He stayed there until the hoofs of zeebas rang through the alley.
He looked at Berinda again, wondering how she would react to the departure of her god. But in fact the baby was now her god. She believed in her muddled way it was hers, the life expelled in agony from her womb, cold clay, carried out as she screamed, but brought back warm and breathing. Something of her very own, at last.
Rem sat her in a chair and brought her the mulled wine Kesarh Am Xai had not bothered with. Berinda laughed down at the baby as she sipped the drink. Rem beheld only a crescent of tiny skull above the blanket. It was a white-skinned child, the pale hair like gossamer on its head, all Shansarian, it seemed, unless the eyes were dark.
It was when he told Berinda they were leaving now, as she got up obediently, lifting her bundle of slight possessions from the floor, that the blanket slipped from the child’s face.
Rem’s heart rushed again, again for no proper reason, save that the eyes of the child were not dark at all. They were like smoky golden suns.
The crossing was a matter of nine or ten days, something less, maybe, with seasonal winds rising. Once the Lannic coast came in sight on the left hand, it would be a passage of sixteen to eighteen days to reach the port of Amlan.
The Lily was a merchant-trader, a heavy ship winged by great sails. Her ship lord, Dhol, had served the Prince’s agents on business ventures in the past, and thought no more of this, housing Rem in his own unluxurious cabin. Rem’s three soldiers slept under awning on deck, used as he was himself to rainy makeshifts. In the cabin. Rem allocated the bed to the girl and baby. He himself stretched out on the floor, something Dhol might have been interested by, had he come in to see.
The time of year was not the best for traveling. Dhol, a money-grabber, always got out before the other trading vessels of Istris. On the whole, the weather was kind to them, raining and blowing consistently, but without serious threat. The push of the wind was actually fortuitous. By noon of the ninth day, the shadow of Lan hardened behind the rain.
“The food to your liking?” inquired Dhol, eating in the cabin with them tonight, to celebrate the sight of Lan.
Rem complimented Dhol on the food.
Seated on the bed, the girl played with the baby, talking to it. As Dhol launched into their first dialogue, some inventory of sea weather, Rem’s mind drifted from him and settled by the child.
She was certainly not quite normal. He had begun to wonder if the incestuous union had brought about some flaw. Nothing so simple as, say, deafness, for sure. She heard things. Or blindness—she saw them, too, in a baby’s way of seeing. And she could make noises though he had never heard her cry. Somehow he sensed she had not cried at birth. But what was it then, this strange haunting otherness? Perhaps imagination. He had been around fewer babies than most men, having never got a woman with child.
“And by the gods, and Ashara, the king-mast cracked like a—”
Dhol was interrupted by something outside. Sudden shouting, that had nothing to do with the activities of the ship. Dhol looked at the door.
“What is it?” Rem asked. The girl paid no attention.
“I’ll see. Sighted a big fish, perhaps. They try to spear them, spear and line—can pull a craft to bits—” Dhol got to his feet. “Continue with your food, sir.”
A wave of dizziness, hollowness, went through Rem’s head. There was no warning pain, it was not really like the other times. But suddenly there was another man standing where Dhol stood, and one of the iron candle-wheels, obviously deprived of its marine balance by some malign hand, flung sideways with enormous force and struck him on the temple—Rem came to his feet and the scene cleared. Dhol was thrusting out of the door, and had not noticed.
Almost involuntarily, Rem followed him.
The deck was loud with noise, and its cause was almost instantly apparent. From the northeast a great dark shape was shouldering out of the rainy dusk, a red smear at her prow. Already she was close enough that their own port-side lights picked out two flaming eyes glaring from the murk, and, high above, the Double Moon and Dragon device of Old Zakoris.
“Pirates!”
Dhol was panting with fear.
“Can you outrun her?”
“Never. Never had to. Never seen one come this far to the south—”
Rem stared, as men hurtled everywhere about him, yelling. The black ship was like a phantom, an undead come back from Tjis to take vengeance.
His three soldiers forced a way to him.
“What orders, sir?”
“The ship lord says he can’t outrun her, and that seems likely. The Free Zakorian biremes are cut for racers. This thing wallows at the best. But no doubt he’ll try.”
“You can already feel it.”
This was so. The rowers’ stations had been alerted below. The wooden husk swarmed to a new internal rhythm. They were rowing for their lives, now.
“If that fails, as it probably will—” Rem looked through the rain at the phantom. Over the din the Lily was making, he could distinguish a thin murmur, a glad shouting from the Free Zakorian as she gained. “Since we haven’t,” he said, “sufficient wine to poison them on this occasion,” the three men grinned, “there’s a ship’s boat forward. Cut it loose and jump for it. Your priorities are the child and the girl.”